FAIRFAX HAS A SENSE OF HUMOUR

Weapons used by the peace loving "activists" who sailed on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010.

Jason Koutsoukis speculates today on speculation about the Turkel Report into Israel's interception of the Free Gaza flotilla which he describes as "botched" - Report tipped to clear Israelis on flotilla raid.

Actually, part of the report has now issued and what it does demonstrate is that what was "botched" was the attempt by some in the media (including Fairfax) to sheet home the blame on Israel for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens who also happened to be members of a faux humanitarian group, the IHH which is actually a terrorist group funded by the Turkish government.

The problem for the blame Israel crew was always the vision of what happened. It simply didn't tally with the lies told to reporters by the activists supporting the IHH and other flotilla hangers on. Lies that bore little examination by those who related them back to their public and that were not followed up by some simple fact checking that would have proved them untrue.

The joke is in this paragraph:-

Eight months after the fatal raid on the flotilla, that included hundreds of international protesters, politicians and observers including Fairfax journalists Paul McGeough and Kate Geraghty, the report is expected to rule that Israel Defence Force troops acted properly.

McGeough was no more an observer of the fatal events that occurred on the Mavi Marmara than you or I were. He was ostensibly an impartial but his record of support for the Palestinian cause is well known and suggests otherwise. His reports relied on versions of the events by partisan supporters of the aims of the flotilla which were to embarrass the Jewish State and not bring aid to Gaza or even break Israel's blockade.

The first part of the Turkel Commission report is available online here. It exonerates Israel and is supported by two impartial observers - people more known for their impartiality than the supposedly balanced Fairfax crowd.

And here is a story about some of flotilla facts that were airbrushed out of existence by Fairfax writers - Soldier on 'Marmara': 'I thought I was going to die'. It has to be stressed that virtually from the beginning the soldiers version was confirmed by vision from the decks of the Mavi Marmara which contradicted the so-called eye witness reports that are now known to be as worthless as the paper they were printed on.